Gas up your blue van, there’s a brand new life around the bend, again!
Who’s the Boss? is the latest show to get a second life. Airing for eight seasons between 1984 and 1992 (you can watch them all on
CTV Throwback), the beloved sitcom is coming back to the small screen with a sequel that includes Tony Danza reprising his role as Tony Micelli and Alyssa Milano returning to play Tony’s daughter, Samantha. A-oh! Oh-a!News of the sequel was announced and confirmed by both Danza and Milano on their Instagram pages. Danza teased the announcement last week with a picture of the cast, including Judith Light, Danny Pintauro and the late Katherine Helmond. On August 4, Danza uploaded several pictures of himself with Milano and the rest of the cast taken from the original sitcom,
writing “Very excited to bring Who’s The Boss back to television!”Milano shared Danza’s enthusiasm for the revival, posting her own picture from the series and
writing “I’ve wanted to share this for so long and now I can! We feel the time is right to tell the story of where these amazing characters are today. Can’t wait to share their stories with you. So happy.” Milano’s announcement post was liked by Danica McKella, whose star-making 1980’s show
The Wonder Years has also recently been revived. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that we need to figure out time travelling, stat.
Who’s The Boss? premiered in 1984 with Danza’s Micelli, a former Major League Baseball player, taking a job as a live-in housekeeper for Angela Bower, a divorced, high power executive and single mother, played by Light. Tony and his street-wise daughter Samantha move from Brooklyn to the Connecticut suburbs to live with straight-laced Angela, her son Jonathan (Pintauro) and Angela’s rebellious mother Mona, played by Helmond, who passed away in 2019. The show was groundbreaking at the time for its role reversal premise that centered on a man working in the home and a woman at an office job. The series had one of the slowest-burning will they/won’t they relationships in TV history between Danza and Light, whose characters didn’t profess their love for each other until the eighth and final season. The series didn’t end with a wedding between the pair and instead had a more ambiguous final episode, leaving the couple’s future uncertain.
Deadline is reporting that the sequel will take place 30 years after the Golden Globe-winning series ended. The show will focus on Milano’s Samantha as a single mother living in the same house from the original series. Like the 1980’s sitcom, the sequel will also heavily focus on different parenting styles and world views. Light and Pintauro are reportedly supportive of the new series, although whether they will be involved is still to be determined. Light has continued to have a successful career in both TV and on stage, winning two Tony awards in 2012 and 2013 and earning Golden Globe, Emmy and Critics' Choice Television Award nominations for her role as Shelly Pfefferman on
Transparent.The original cast reunited in 2016 for a photoshoot in
Entertainment Weekly, marking the final time the five actors were publicly photographed together. Helmond died at age 89 last year. The actor was remembered by her
Who’s The Boss? co-stars, including Milano, who shared a picture of Helmond on her Instagram. “My beautiful, kind, funny, gracious, compassionate, rock. You were an instrumental part of my life. You taught me to hold my head above the marsh! You taught me to do anything for a laugh! What an example you were,”
wrote Milano.Danza also paid tribute to Helmond, who was nominated for a Tony in 1973 and took home Golden Globes for her work on
Soap and
Who’s The Boss?. “We all lost a national treasure today. No words can measure my love,”
wrote Danza, who shared several pictures of himself with Helmond.Danza and Milano will act as executive producers on the upcoming sequel along with Brent Miller, Dan Farah and Norman Lear. The sequel is still being shopped to studios, so TBD on whether
Who’s The Boss? will be on cable or streaming. In the meantime, you can catch up on all eight seasons of the original series on
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